Hands Full of Rocks

Working 'step two'

Miss M used to have severe anxiety. A big part of that was the diet - a side effect of eating the wrong diet when you have Fructose Malabsorption is that tryptophan isn't absorbed well. No tryptophan, body can't effectively make serotonin. Imbalance in serotonin = mood issues (depression/anxiety/rage).

So she had a pretty bad case of it, tilted toward anxiety. Turned into a little zombie when people talked to her. It was so bad that at the early intervention assessment, she couldn't even close her hand on a toy. Just sat on my lap staring straight ahead. Kinda scary, actually. The home visit with the psychologist was no better. Sat on my lap, couldn't speak, couldn't move. Wah!

But the diet change helped tremendously. Funny that! In four days, she was a new person. But she still had a baseline anxiety issue.

The psychologist was great - not the least being great with the parental side of things.

She asked (seeing M all catatonic) if we took her out places. No, really, we'd cut back on all activities that caused her to shut down.

Good job, mom. You guys have done a fantastic job at step one of the process - protecting your child from harmful situations.

And now, step two. Step two is giving her the skills to safely and comfortably participate in life, including situations that she 'naturally' finds stressful. Time to give her the skills to participate in and enjoy the things that right now are 'too scary'.

It was nice to hear that we'd done so well at step one, even though I knew we'd pretty much skipped step two at that point. Didn't even realize there was a step two!

I think a lot of parents don't think about step two. We're so media trained to worry about safety, to fret for the dangers, to be wary, that we don't even think about coaching the skills for enjoying uncomfortable and 'scary' situations. Sure, we coach for survival (what to do if a stranger approaches you inappropriately), but what about just 'nervous'? What about just being around strangers with your parents? What about all the other skills for handling unknown or uncomfortable situations?

Once we knew there was a 'step two', we kicked into gear on coaching, prepping, practicing, giving alternatives to try, and being backstop/safety net. Told her where we were going, what we'd do there, who would be there. Reminded her of her skills for talking, playing, and asking for help when she needed it. Let her bring her big stuffed shark to church (where it could add a layer between her and 'people'). Explained the rules for parties, set expectations, talked about events before they happened, gave her a job or role for the event...

And it has worked. Still works, and we still use it. Birthday parties are now fun, and nobody knows she has that much baseline anxiety. Most people would guess it is Miss R who had the big scary fear of people and events. Miss M? She's off into the puppy pile, racing ahead, in charge of herself, certain of what she's doing, knows how to handle the emotional discomfort.

She's becoming an old hand at working step two.

Acceptant Loving Faithful is a good outward filter, too

I have had a rough week, personally. Lots of past history (abuse-related) coming up due to some other events. Just one of those bad cycles, though I haven't had one this bad in a very long time. I tried to track back how long it has been (I initially thought 10-12 years), but the last time this bad, where it was interfering with my daily functioning, was 15 years ago. After 15 years, I didn't really expect it to ever happen again.

Kinda took me by surprise. Which meant I had a hard time getting my feet under me. Huge physical reactions, getting the shakes at work, having to work at not crying in meetings. Bad, in other words. Fortunately, just two days of bad, and then three days of waiting for the next flashback or surge of emotional pain out of nowhere... meanwhile, trying to build a social net, and leaning into the net I already have (letting people know that I might need some support, and why).

What does this have to do with the triad? (Acceptant/Loving/Faithful) I realized that while these three filters are my internal measures of action toward others, they are also what makes others' actions toward me feel 'right'. The more attuned to this triad a response it, the more it feels good, appropriate, effective. Hmm, the more it is acceptant, loving, and faithful, the more it feels safe, respectful, kind, and the more it tends to also land in effective, prudent, and true, too. 

Pretty cool, that.

Two of my coworkers (one also a friend) are extraordinarily good at this. It is part of their character, though it comes out in different ways, and with different emphasis. And okay, the 'loving' part is not the same definition as I'd have for ep - but 'loving-kindness' is definitely there. They let me be me (even if that's not what they would expect of someone else), they respond with warmth and caring regularly (more often than I would expect, certainly), and they have faith in me. That last one really matters - without the faith in me, I end up feeling weaker, not stronger. They trust me to handle myself, which includes asking for what I need. I know where I'm likely to err, and their faith in me helps me ask for help in just that space, instead of being treated like I can't handle things at all (which would just make me angry if I didn't give in to it, and ashamed if I did).

Both of them helped me get my feet under me. Interestingly similar strategies to do so. One spent a longer time on the acceptant part of the conversation (listened and asked over a longer span), but they both did all three. Just having the conversation was important to getting my balance. And having the conversation with those three filters in evidence was the critical part.

Interesting to feel how that feels applied back. I could read through those filters how I am valued. More than interesting, humbling. Makes for some thoughtful moments about how much I need to stay attuned to that in the other direction - if I feel this way when someone else is acceptant, loving and faithful toward me, then I can expect that my kids will feel this when I am the same toward them.

I suspect I have been using this triad much longer than I thought I had. When I think now about my other friends and relationships, the ones I think of as 'best' are all a match to this triad, which I came up with specifically for talking to my kids about relationships of all sorts.

Using the triad as an outward filter (for that which is incoming) may also be why I have an easier time being friends with people who have very different values from mine - it isn't what values they have that matters most (maybe some, but not most), but the quality of their ethical exercise. If they are true to their values, I can trust them to be true to their values. I know where they are, and where they will go, and what matters, even if I don't believe the same things. It is easier for me to be acceptant when I know the other person is true to their values. There's more to it, of course, but that's a big part.

Meanwhile, loving is a direct return in the middle - even if the form of loving-kindness from them is not the exact form of loving-kindness I express back.

Anyway. Back on my feet, now, I think. I had the second of the two conversations yesterday, and this morning I woke up not feeling scraped raw. Much better.

Tired + red dye + disregulation stage = AHHHHHHHHHH!

So, that was not fun, and I wasn't even there.

My mom took my brother and his wife and son, plus all my kids, to the museum rounds. Now, usually they're pretty decent in museums. They're a little too familiar, perhaps, and tend to treat them with a bit of a casual air - these are their museums, the ones they go to often, the ones they know and love, and they tend to be a bit more confident of themselves than most kids.

Usually still respectful, though.

Only, unbeknownst to all involved, Mr B had some candy with red dye right before they headed off. He'd checked it with ep, ep thought that the purple candy had purple dye (not red plus blue - hey, there's purple dye for clothing that is just purple all by itself...), so he gave the go-ahead.

As usual, the effects weren't immediate. It takes a little while for the process to cause a reaction, but it does. Maybe not every kid reacts (the other three certainly don't have a huge crisis reaction), but oh, holy pete, does Mr B react.

He becomes demanding. rude. inflexible. weepy. angry. volatile. super-sensitive to anything that might be at all unfair (read: selfish). demanding, did I say demanding? pushy. obnoxious. unsafe, disrespectful, unkind.

My mom was mortified, because he yelled at another family when they came near something he was doing, told them they couldn't come over there. It was a black family. He doesn't care what ethnicity or race they are, he just wanted to do it By Himself. But my mom cared that they might think that race was the issue, and she was trying to wrangle the other kids so couldn't go apologize before that family left, with unhappy looks shot in my mom's direction. The idea that another family had their day marred by Mr B is a seriously unhappy thought for me.

Mom is used to us being so on top of the dye and food (fructose malabsorption) stuff that if an error occurs - which it does now and then - we know and can warn her. Or we hold Mr B out of the mix, if it is likely to be a bad one.

And the reaction is usually even worse on the disregulation stage. He's just enough out of kilter to start with, that he can't get back on top of his behavior. Usually in the regulation side of the year, he can manage himself back down to just a constant grumble and periodic bouts of whining. Not stomping, yelling, and shoving. Certainly not in public. Being unkind is unlike him, too. That's usually his greatest strength.

Crapola.

Booger, booger, crap.

Add in that he's had several days of overstimulation and not enough sleep (yay, cousin D is here! play play play play PLAY PLAY PLAY PLAY), and ... holy ouch.

Now, Mr G didn't help. He'd 'just' had the tired and overwhelmed and maybe a little disregulation (though he's still not following the old pattern, that I can see - definitely more disregulated in little bursts as the testosterone hits his bloodstream in that kind of random pattern of a few days on and a week or so off). Mr G's introversion had him in snapping turtle mode - either trying to hide in his shell, or snapping at people who made him come out. Which then cycled into it seeming more okay for everyone else to be snappish and rude and dismissive of the rules of behavior, which then modeled downwards to the other kids, who then cycled further out of control.

Lordy. What fun. Nephew was in tears several times. They usually do a decent job of figuring out who will sit in the front seat of the shuttle around the outside of the museum, but this time the driver had to tell them to behave. There was that yelling-at-the-other-family incident. And a lot of begging, whining, pushing the other younger cousin, screaming, crying, and shouting.

Well, that was a fun outing. Yeah.

And then there was me talking to ep on the phone from work, and that sinking feeling of dread before I gear up to handle the issue. Then talking to my mom (who I think was a little overstating how my brother and SIL felt about it, because she really doesn't want them to vanish and not come back here, and was interpreting their statement that it would be a long time before they came back as 'because of today, it will be a long time before we come back, and I don't blame them' - but my brother had already said to me that they didn't expect to come back for at least a few years - there are family reunions every two years, so this is essentially an extra trip for them, and the next reuinion is at their place, next summer). But mom was still hurting and angry and horribly embarassed by their behavior - mortified, I think would be about right. My brother and SIL had forgiven the kids long since, because they are kids - they're imperfect, and they really don't see how the kids USUALLY behave, so this wasn't a long fall from usual, it was just 'kids messing around and not listening'. Cousin D had also already forgotten about the problems, and was on to the next thing. Phew.

Still, we expect the kids to handle the problems they create, and build the skills of saying sorry and managing their relationships. That takes practice, so we'll hold them to it. Not unkindly, but hold them to it, no letting them off the hook.

So then there was talking to the kids, on the phone (still at my cube, with the coworkers suddenly going quiet in the middle of the conversation, but me too stuck in it with Mr G to pause and take my cell phone and go elsewhere, and besides, despite the fact that the kids behaved badly, I don't mind people knowing that I'll enforce that they do have to manage the problem and make amends, mend fences and tend to their relationships - it's not FUN, but it's okay. I just won't tell the kids that there were about eight people very quietly listening over the cube walls, because for them it should be a private conversation - it isn't like they'll meet these people. The acoustics in there are amazing - I can hear everyone's conversations about three cubes down and four across - and I'm in the corner, so that's a big space.) Sigh.

Mr G is so much his type that he had a hard time picturing that anyone else's perspective of the situation could be at all accurate. He was quite disturbed and offended and hurt that anyone might think he had been stubborn, rude, or disrespectful. He didn't read his choice to not speak and just stand there and stare at the others (and at Baba) in response to their questions as 'rude' - he tends to think that people know what he's thinking, because HE knows what he's thinking. Uh. Just thinking respectful thoughts doesn't constitute being respectful. Sigh.

Mr B was really not much 'there' on the phone, he was vague and wandery, which made me a little suspicious way back in the back of my head. But it wasn't until much later (after we got home from saying goodbye and mending fences with my brother and family - for extra fun, this happened on their last night here) that he asked for another of the same candy item he'd eaten before he left for the museum trip. Uh. You ate THAT? BINGO, we have a winner. That'd set him off on the best of days. Crud.

He was still locked up even then (rocked and twisted back and forth, saying that it was the only thing he wanted, it wasn't fair, it wasn't fair, it wasn't fair, cried, rocked back and forth some more, insisted that he couldn't change his mind, it had to be that, it had to be that, it had to be that - it's the weird repetition of the same same same same that is the most obvious cue that something is amiss in his brain chemistry - he gets stuck in a loop and can't get out, it's like a panic attack plus OCD). But he does tend to get a better grip when he understands that it isn't HIM driving this desperate need reaction, it is the chemical reaction in his body that's doing it (a sudden drop in tryptophan levels creates a change in serotonin in the brain, and the result, according to research, is a much more severe reaction to the idea of 'unfair' - much more stubborn and emotionally locked up and resistant to the idea of giving in or letting things proceed even if they're imperfect). He was at that point willing to be comforted, climbed on my lap (oof, he's getting big for that - he's still small for his age, but he's seven...), cuddled in, rocked a bit more, and then said that there was still nothing else he wanted, but if I'd get him the ones like that candy that were the right color (and there were some, only they ended up going home with another child instead of Mr B at Easter), then he would be okay.

And then later he locked up on needing more dinner instead, after everyone else was done and headed to bed. Sigh. But I got him more dinner, because the additional food might help keep the reaction moving through (maybe, it just seemed to make sense - provide more sources of tryptophan, maybe it will help), and then off to bed for us all.

Whee.

It did generate some good conversations, though. Mr G and I discussed the idea that there is more than just the reality that is one's own perspective - that the outer observation of others was as valid as the inner observation of self - different, but valid. Neither may be entirely accurate, too - Mr G tends not to notice the time span he spends thinking, so he can't see that he's standing there for a long time not moving or doing anything, in response to others. For him, that's immediate. For others, it's WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR????? Oh. Really? Huh. We talked about introverts and extroverts, and how annoying it is to have a mom who is an extrovert (that'd be me), but that at the same time, it will mean he's going to have some skills around handling extroverts that his dad didn't learn as a kid (his entire family is introverts).

Mr B also was easier about letting Mr G alone, because we could explain that his need to be-with (mr EXTROVERT) was not any more valid than Mr G's need to be alone, and so he didn't get to force Mr G to play with him - Mr G was done, he really needed some down time, please respect that. And he did, easily - it made sense, and more importantly, it was Not Personal. It wasn't a rejection, because it was about Mr G, not about their relationship.

My mom also ended up explaining Mr G's type to another of the cousins, and talked about the strengths and weaknesses of each type with her. I think explaining that to someone else also cements the idea that this is a skills issue, and not personal. It was not fun, but it wasn't a failure so much as a problem. Talking types allowed it to take that form, and we went from 'they were awful' to 'they need to do some skills building around this - and it's going to take a long time, because these are complex skills'.

I'm still particularly unhappy about the other family whose day was dinged - and possibly badly so - by Mr B. There's no way for me to make amends on that one. All I can do is make sure Mr B understands that even though he really doesn't care what ethnicity or race someone is, other people may think he does, and his only choice is to accord everyone equal kindness and regard, because the equal misery and disrespect will translate differently to others. It's like the whole 'all happy families are happy in the same way, all dysfunctional families are dysfunctional in their own ways' thing - people respond reasonably similarly to positive interactions, and uniquely (based on their own wounds) to negative ones.

So much to teach. So much understanding of the world, of people, and of how to relate to others to pass on, coach, and model. It's a good thing I still have a few years left to do it in. (nobody remind me that Mr G will be off to college in about 8 years, okay?)

Marriage, arranged marriage, and expectations

I generally don't blog about work, for a variety of reasons. However, the recent Ask Moxie discussion on how to communicate about sex with your partner got me thinking about some conversations I've had at work recently.

And no, not that kind of conversation. I think if I mentioned anything even vaguely related to sex the (Indian) guys I work with would just pretend they went temporarily deaf, the way they did when I suggested they could teach me Hindi by starting with the swear words. They didn't miss a beat, just kept their part of the conversation going like I hadn't said a thing. Cultural strategy, expertly applied.

It was strange, and weirdly funny - I temporarily became completely invisible and inaudible. I can imagine that it can be a really horrible thing (or horrifying), under certain circumstances, too, but at least we're dealing with a modern profile of members of the culture, who are generally married to educated (often highly educated) women, and who also are dealing with the intercultural expectations adaptively. Mostly, anyway.

I have had some conversations that weren't totally in their comfort zone, though, without losing them. In particular, I have talked about arranged marriage with the guy I work with most, and in reasonable detail. (I am almost certain that they have been encouraged to Not Talk About This with Americans because of the tendency for most of the guys to suddenly dodge if the subject comes up, even if they were the ones who brought it up.)

The thing that stood out for me in the discussion I did manage to get into was that the trajectory of expectations differs vastly. My coworker said that the assumption was that your parents know you well, and understand marriage with a longer view than you are likely to have, so you're starting out with someone looking at the long view of your life, not the immediate aspect. As for love, that's the goal, not the starting place. The expectation is that after years of working together, communicating and striving and putting effort into being a team, love will grow. The goal is to end up in love with your spouse, not to start out in love with your spouse.

Not that it always works, for myriad reasons. But the idea of love as the eventual goal sets a very different pattern of intentions and behaviors from the start.

Another baseline assumption is that marriage is not going to be smooth and easy (but at least having selected a good partner for you, hopefully it won't be excessively rough). Nobody in the modern version is expected to read minds (or not any more than one would expect with a friend - birthday surprises are great, but having a wife who is straightforward about what she wants is considered good, for example). Communication is required in order to reach the point where love can and will grow.

There's no worry that if there's a rough patch, the love will go away forever, poof. Hey, you started out not feeling the love anyway! Getting through the rough patches together, still as a team, is expected to be part of what MAKES love grow. Not the other way around.

It makes for an interesting perspective.

And it does seem to work for a portion of the population. While divorce is on the rise in India, and there are a lot (!!) of social pressures against divorce (meaning by interpretation that there are people who would divorce if there was less antagonism to the idea), there are also a lot of marriages that work, where there is real love at the end of it.

The rising middle class has modified the rules about arranged marriage, as well - and that's more what I'm talking about here (there are still forced arranged marriages, but nobody wants to talk about that). For example, in the 'modern' version, there's an assumption that each party has the right to no-vote any selection made (we know one woman who only said yes to the 10th man her parents found, meanwhile her parents learned a great deal about her interests, needs, style, etc. - and both parties in the eventual match were very happy with the arrangement).

Also, because of the relatively high marriage minimum age (legally, 18 for women, 21 for men, and many college students wait until after graduation and establishment of a career to even start the process of considering a spouse), there can be years to make adult friendships that your parents may watch for potentials. My coworker had been friends with his wife for years, as well as their families being friends, before the arrangement was made. Stories abound in the young educated circles of savvy couples working their parents' expectations as hard as the other way around, setting their parents up to choose the person they want their parents to choose, and both generations thinking they have the other one completely snowed. There's a degree of puzzlement openly expressed in India that arranged marriage hasn't vanished in the middle class, but they point to the fear that if they go all the way to love-match marriage, they'll end up with a high risk of divorce. American marriage statistics are a case-in-point example, for them, of how not to approach the idea of marriage. But they are willing to borrow the idea of right-of-refusal (both parties must be willing), and they are willing to borrow the idea of the individuals meeting and being friends first as an acceptable route to an arrangement.

I can attest to the value of marrying someone you're already friends with, personally. The friendship holds us together when the more romantic form of love isn't primary. The expectations we had were in some ways similar to those of my Indian work friends - this is a partnership, it will take effort, we need to work together, and working together will build long-term love. We thought about the long view, and recognized that it wasn't going to all be easy because we already loved each other, it was going to be effort despite the fact that we loved each other.

Discussing the merits of arranged marriage is probably making my ancestors roll over in their graves, though. Miss M's middle name is Freelove, which is after her many-times-great grandmother, whose own mother was (as far as we can tell) a Radical, (she was also a Quaker, on my side of the family). As rather a number of Quakers were, she was involved in the (GASP!) Free Love Movement, which certainly doesn't fit with the idea of traditional arranged marriage... (short form is: free unions of adults are legitimate relations which should be respected by all third parties whether they are emotional or sexual relations. In addition: both men and women have equal right to sexual pleasure; everyone has a right to equal treatment within and outside legal marriage regardless of gender; love is not to be bounded by either law or tradition.) It is somewhat strange to think of using some of the mindset that comes from arranged marriage when my own family tree was kicking over those traces, and setting the stage for the idea of romantic love being a valid basis of relationship, and effectively the ONLY valid basis.

You can still see the echoes of the Free Love movement in American marriage expectations. They were a radical fringe, but they really did transform our ideas - it just took a couple centuries for us to get there. And now we're here, the 1960's having done a lot of the finishing off on that. Only, culture being what it is, we still carry a lot of the women-as-lesser inequity into the marriage process as well. It's just the entry point that was changed. But that's another post entirely.

The long-term view of what marriage is for, and where the goals are, is entangled in the culture. Indian culture takes a very long-term view in general. It's what you get 'way down the road' that is of importance, not what it is like now. American culture has a very short time horizon. Immediate is good. A few years, the time span we think we can see clearly-enough, that's where we aim. Five years is the max most people can imagine and think is at all accurate (that is also culturally set). We picture now, roll that forward five years, and the rest is an increasingly vague fog. In cultures with a long time horizon, they picture 20, 30, 40, 50 years from now, and then fill in the major steps in between, sketched out but building toward that future point. It may be a high-altitude view, without much detail, but it allows for a very different approach to the structure of marriage. It also glosses over a lot of potential misery in hopes that the route will end up at that goal anyway. Plus, minus.

Another aspect of arranged marriages that we don't have either as a positive or a negative is the coordination of relatives. Granted, coordinating the in-laws also means they can gang up on you. But if you're starting from 'the in-laws have a relationship of their own' (that is, 'marriage joins two families, not just two people'), it's possible to find other ways than the American 'ignore-or-tolerate' to manage difficult in-law relationships. Forging a relationship between the in-laws before marriage makes it less likely that you'll have the whole 'I hate who you married' thing that pops up so often in conversations about marriage and in-laws in the US. Granted, I don't know anyone who would want to try that unless they think the in-laws will get along in the first place. Those who do expect their in-laws to get along don't expect any 'I hate who you married' attitude, either. Kind of excludes the option from the American side.

Just to be clear, I am not advocating for arranged marriages. The risks are ever-present, and the abuses are rampant where it is practiced. There are definitely good versions of it, as there are also versions of by-choice love match marriages, too.

I think the major concept I'd like to add to the usual American approach is the idea that love is something that you are striving to build, something you hope to create-and-end-up-with, through years of coordinated work and communication. I like that concept better than love being something that you have at the start with but that you have to protect jealously lest it fade, shatter, or fly away. Too many people seem to spend significant time and effort trying to preserve or guard their love, rather than spending that time and effort learning to live well together, and thereby creating love as a byproduct of that effort.

Ep and I maybe got lucky on that point - we are not automatically 'in tune with each other' - we're very different personalities, and we assumed from the outset that our friendship, affection, attraction, and love were not the same as 'a perfect fit'. We grind gears, and always have. The effort to not grind gears on each other was there from the start, and the assumption was that if we coasted we'd both suffer. To keep our essential differences from interfering with our friendship and interactions, we were very direct about rules, expectations, needs, and communication. Out of that, we discovered that the more we worked on making life together function well, the better the 'fit' seemed to be, and the deeper the love seemed to go. 

Is it a lot of effort? Yes. Sometimes boring effort (including both tedious and frustrating), sometimes painful effort, mostly just plain old daily effort. My mom once told me that being married is one of the hardest things you'll do (other than raising kids), it is a lot of effort, but it is worth the effort. I grew up knowing that, and knowing that even making the effort every day won't get you everything you want sometimes. But still worth the trying. No guarantees, only the suggestion that working on the grungy, boring, un-fun details leads us in the right direction, on the long time horizon.

And still just as well we weren't in an arranged-marriage culture... I doubt either of our parents would have chosen us as a match at the start. In the Indian system, I would have been the last pick on the list, for a variety of reasons (including the fact that I'd dated more, er, broadly, than ep had), and ep would never have even hit radar for my mom (she'd have picked an extrovert for me, and not an apparently quiet guy who also had an earring and wore a fair bit of leather). We'd have had to do the whole 'nope, nope, not that one either, try again' routine. I think I'd have driven my mom nuts on that.

I think I'll take my own expectations over the cultural ones, and hope we can pass those down to the kids. Love does not conquer all. Love is not proof that you don't need to put in daily effort, and happily ever after is not reality. Reality is messy, and work. (Again showing my age, and thanks to Terry for introducing me to her music:) Ferron's song about the process is valid, to my mind: Love don't travel down a straight line track, it come together and it come apart. On top of that, though, is the idea that as it starts to come apart, it can be worth the effort to put it back together with a long view to the distant horizon.

Teaching our kids about looking down the long time horizon is important. They need to know that it may be possible to bring the tracks together again when they start to come apart. That possibility makes the effort worth starting. That first step back after things come apart is often the hardest, and without a long view, it may be easier to give up than to work it through.

Fragility of life

Nobody I knew well died, first off.

Sorry for the non-posting, second-off.

Life has been touching on the fragile stuff lately, though, and I've had a hard time expressing it - three posts started, all unfinished because they just didn't get to the heart of what I was feeling.

Multiple layers of intersection on the fragility of human life, though, in the last month.

A friend of mine lost a dear friend to cancer.

My mom is going in for a hip replacement tomorrow (I have medical power of attorney, along with my brother).

A dear friend from forever was diagnosed with cancer. His wife is pregnant with their first child.

Another dear friend from forever has been diagnosed with multiple joint osteoarthritis (she's younger than me).

My dad was hospitalized with a bad asthma attack.

I spent part of yesterday worried about Mr B, who was having intense abdominal pain. He recovered like nothing had happened, but it set me to thinking.

Our bodies are fragile. Sturdy in some ways, but strikingly fragile in others. I am usually quite okay with this - it's part of what makes life precious and beautiful.

But some days, it's leaning a lot harder on the 'this sucks' side than the 'hold to the joy' side. And I'm sure that as I continue to tread my way past 40, more and more of my family and friends will pass their warranty end date, and the aches and pains that are starting to show will transition to more disorder and disease than just aches and pains. More treatments, more medications, more surgeries, more things to prop our health up, remove the difficult stuff, and try to reassemble us in some kind of useful order.

My great-aunt once told me that one of the worst parts of getting old is that you have to avoid stresses of all sorts - you just can't handle stress anymore, it makes you sick. Oh, and by the way, she added, being old is stressful. You can't escape that loop.

It was funny at the time, in a sardonic kind of way. But it is less funny now that I am nearer that, and not 14 years old anymore. There was no advice there, only warning (I did - unintentionally - take her advice to marry a younger man, since she said that it is also more stressful to be old alone, and men die sooner - I didn't quite get to her advice of marrying someone six years younger than me, though).

So, in the face of the fragility of human life, what do we do?

I've had pregnancy losses, but not many other losses close in, so I can only take my lessons from where I've had them. And the lesson has always been to allow myself to be reminded of the pure intensity of being alive.

Loss always brings me to that rawness, the too-painful awareness that I am a physical, living being. I can feel my entire body, each breath, each heartbeat. In the depth of it, each heartbeat is agonizingly real, each breath is an in-rushing and expulsion at a cosmic scale, like the universe is breathing through me. The layers of insensitivity I've padded my skin with melt away, and here I am, naked to reality, fully and intensely alive. It isn't a joyfulness of living, but it is a pure state nonetheless.

From there, I can make my way back to the bittersweet passion of knowing I'm alive, and that life is complex and searing and gentle and overwhelming and wide open. It isn't the narrow confines of the view I've set with my own blinders. It is only what it is, and that is ... well, everything. And from there I find the joy again, and the fierceness of living, and the willingness to hurt because pain is part of life.

So, again, here I am. Working my way through to the place where I can be my mother's shoulder, instead of her being mine, changing from adult-child to adult-child-caregiver.

It was easier to leap immediately to the aid of my friends, the one with the newly diagnosed cancer and his wife - I'd taken that role before with them, ages ago when he had heart surgery. I didn't expect to take it again so soon, but ... it would be unthinkable to not step into the gap, to not start weaving a net for them. (Any of my dancing friends who read this blog, I'm talking about the residents of Kiloran - email me and I'll add you to the yahoo group I've set up for supporting them.)

I think I notice this stuff particularly because I've lived without being alive before, protected from pain and fear by layers of refusal and denial and dissociation. But I took down those walls a ways back.

I like it better when life is real. Real, painful, scary, joyful, fragile, intense, passionate, precious. It takes me by surprise, sometimes, how deeply I can be affected by a moment, how strongly I can feel being alive.

At the same time, it can suprise me how very much being alive is an everyday thing. Strange, how knowing I'm truly alive does not make the laundry go away. The dishes will still pile up, and the trash will still need to be taken out.

So, tomorrow morning, I'll do the quotidian tasks, shower, dress, get ready for work, and then I will drive my mother to the hospital, and sit with her, and remind her to do her hypnotherapy work pre-op, and tell her that I love her, and wait for my brother to come tag in, then go off and work while I wait for news that her hip has been replaced by a metal stand-in. Wait knowing that sometimes things go perfectly, and sometimes they do not, and that there is no choice in this beyond the choices we have already made - finding the best center, the best doctor, the best care, making the best preparations we can.

We can set things up only so far.

After that, it is letting go of the death-grip on life, opening hands cupped around the butterfly-wing fragility of the people we hold dear, and then stepping forward freely into today's reality, in whatever form it takes.

Anxiety and Risk Management by Playing "What If"

Mr G is self-driven. He runs on internal motivation, period. He chooses, he does. He is also a generous, thoughtful, and considerate person who genuinely cares about others, so internal motivation isn't necessarily a problem. He started out pretty outwardly concerned, overly concerned with safety and approval, and we gently and carefully guided him towards challenging himself, allowing himself, choosing for himself, thinking for himself.

We had kind of blown it a few times (um, the first couple of years, straight through) regarding catastrophizing. That is, we greeted every possible conceivable risk with the worst-case result. Don't climb on that, you'll fall off and break your neck. Don't run in the street, you'll get hit by a car and die. Don't run so fast, you'll fall. Don't spin around in the living room, you'll fall and hit your head and have to go to the hospital for stitches.

It didn't help that the last two on the list actually happened.

We set up the world to be a place where the slightest error on anyone's part meant certain disaster. No surprise then that he was trending toward perfectionism (if I am not perfect, the world will implode, everyone will hate me, my friends will make fun of me, the teachers will not pay attention to me, nobody will love me), and anxiety (I can't try, it's too dangerous; I can't start, what if I can't stop?; I must always be on the alert for danger and threats).

Oops.

We did finally figure out that something was wrong with the picture, and started working through two book - Helping Your Anxious Child: A Step-By-Step Guide for Parents and Your Anxious Child: How Parents and Teachers Can Relieve Anxiety in Children. The first of those was also recommended by a child psychologist for Miss M's anxiety. So, two scores for that one.

Both books were worth the effort, though I discovered quickly that the main issue was not him, but us. Ouch.

Taking our cue from the books, we did two main things.

1. Stopped making every possible mishap into the worst-case.
2. Started talking about the range of real possible outcomes. And unreal ones, too.

The first item was remarkably difficult. I am prone to PPA (postpartum anxiety), so in my mind every risk kept bringing up just what I said - worst case. I could see the crisis coming, for every instance. This, however, isn't a useful way to live. I didn't even know about PPA at the time, but I did know I wasn't nearly so anxious before I had a child (I assumed this was normal, though it was just a bit on the outer edge of normal). Choosing to just state my worst fear to my child meant I was injecting those fears into him, rather than dealing with them as my own fears. I had to start relying more on allowing myself to be afraid, and to state that I was afraid. Teacher-friends noted that it is more useful to say, 'I'm scared that you'll get hurt' than to say 'you will get hurt' - because they WILL try it out to test your hypothesis, and they can prove that they didn't get hurt (that time), and so 'you will' is therefore suspect for all future cases, and may be discarded out of hand. Total ignore. That's just grownups being boring old grownups. But 'I'm scared'? Well, you know, that's not disproven. Every time we do something like this, and the teacher (or other adult) says, 'I'm scared', they actually look scared (or at least upset, and sometimes angry). Case is proven true, this is a statement that can be attended to. And kids are remarkably unhappy about making others unhappy, all things considered. More so when they have an honest statement to work from. It was still hard to do. Hard to say out loud, 'I am afraid.' Hard to accept that the child is not afraid of the things that scare me. Hard even for me to remember the sheer joy of meeting a challenge, climbing to the top of the slide, learning to hang upside down from a tree limb. Fear had no place there (okay, just a bit at the top of the really TALL slide, but having my big sister climb up behind me, and slide down with me between her legs, and pick me up with a laugh and a quick dust-off from where I'd flown into the dirt at the bottom, and then with a twinkle in her eye ask if I wanted to do it again... fear? yeah, for a moment. But oh, speed, and oh, height, and oh, the astonishment of the world blurring into a smear of color and light with the warmth of slide under me and the strength of sister behind me, and the sudden solidifying of all experience as I jarred to earth again... fear? what fear?). Even remembering that, hard to speak to my own fear, and not to try to make it theirs by force.

And the second item. Making the range of possibles a range of possibles is healthy. It is safer, and saner, and a better way to live. Refer to Protecting the Gift: Keeping Children and Teenagers Safe (and Parents Sane). Addressing reality in a real way is a great safeguard. Knowing that there is a range of risk, and that one can choose one's actions to modify that risk is important. That, actually, was much easier, once I got past the emotions about my emotions (meta-emotion, 'feeling about feelings' - fear of being afraid, or anger or fear about people expressing anger, etc.), I was much more able on this front.

We started with playing 'What If' - whenever Mr G would bring up an anxiety, we'd open up the world to the many possible outcomes, not limit it to just one, and that one catastrophic. One I recall in particular was about 'what if a bear got into our house?'

Now, we live in a small town, but not in bear country. The odds? Vanishingly small. But minimizing the fear ('that won't happen' or 'that's a silly idea' or 'heavens, what made you think that was possible?') just makes people think they're not being taken seriously, and leaves them with the fear plus feeling alone, which is worse.

So, play what if? "What if a bear did get into our house? What do you think would happen?"

Mr G's response was that it would eat us all, we'd all die. I could then choose to minimize again - tell him his fear was misplaced, or silly, or not relevant because a bear would not ever do that. And again, that would just leave him still afraid and still alone. Instead, I went with the game - come up with another answer. ANY answer, and keep going coming up with answers until you are getting into the absurd so far that you have left the anxiety behind, and have presented as many possible realistic scenarios as you can think up, too. The kid will come up with all the scary ones for you, so you don't even have to go there, but you can allow them to be part of the range of possible. That allows the fear to be okay, but also places it in perspective.

I came up with, "as the bear comes in the back door, we all run out the front door, slam the door, run around the house and close the other door, call the police who come take the bear away. Now, what else? What else would happen if a bear got in?"

Mr G, full of his anxiety, was willing to let it out - more scary scenarios came out with each of the next few turns for him. But I took the ball and ran with it, too.

"The bear would stand up, ask us if we have any peanut butter, we'd say yes, give it a jar of peanut butter and it would say thanks, and then leave."

"We'd ask the bear if it wanted to stay for tea, and we'd serve tea and crumpets with blueberry jam, and the bear would be our friend forever."

Well, it didn't take long on that to get the imagination going, and Mr G ended up merrily deciding that the bear was actually an alien in disguise and it turned our house into a space ship and took us on a flight around the galaxy and we got to meet all sorts of aliens and see all the planets and...

And anxiety gone. The range of possible included (yes) the scary options. People DO get hurt by bears. And it included the sane ones. And it included the impossible but fun-to-imagine ones.

This game takes full advantage of the imagination that is involved in anxiety. One of the books (I can't recall which one) suggests that anxiety is often the result of an untrained imagination - or rather, one that has been trained in only one way, to picture the worst case. Modeling by parents makes that even more potent.

Now, Mr G is still a little cautious sometimes. But mainly, he considers the world to be an adventure with some risks and a lot of great possibilities.

Unfortunately his assessment of risk is still somewhat at the 10-year-old level, and so we spent four hours or so at the emergency room on Saturday, because he'd chosen to try to move some large panels of plexiglass while barefoot, and dropped one on his foot. It doesn't seem to be fractured (the foot - the panel is fine, much to their relief since it is going to be part of their bedroom decor), but he's still in a large black robotic-looking walking boot, and I still have to call the orthopedic department at the children's hospital to find out whether we need to do something more. I did manage to keep my emotions to myself (mostly), and instead of asking him why he didn't THINK and why he didn't ask himself if this was safe, and why he didn't... everything, I just asked if he thought he had new information about what he could and could not do safely, and what kind of safety equipment might be good before trying to move heavy objects, and whether the thought he should check in with someone with more experience with the task to help assess risks. (not all those questions at once, either - I spread them out.) And he ruefully said shoes would have been good, and asking an adult for help would have been good, and now he was going to have quite the story to tell his kids about choosing safely, and he's thinking he'll save the boot so he can show them what it looked like.

Okay, maybe that's a bit much, but at least his imagination is still working! I just wish sometimes the 'what if' was played out in his head, first, instead of on his body.

Parenting for tomorrow

So, toddlers and discipline, as requested. Oh, that oh-so-entangled time period, the toddler stage. It's maddening. It's frazzling. It's as frustrating and powerless and desperate and urgent as ... um, a toddler.

I can't say that I'm brilliant at parenting this age. My mom is pretty good with it, overall. She can sit and play endless mind-numbing tea party games in fragments of 14.2 seconds duration. She loves when they say NO, it's so powerful a statement of self!

And, um, I'm not my mom. I love this age, but not for that part of it. I love the adventuresomeness. I love the will, passion, and drive. I love the urgency to discover. I can remember feeling that, the glorious sparke of everything bright, the amazing texture and complex flavor (and temperature) of dust-covered rocks (I was particularly fond of granite river rock from the playground, and yes, I ate three of them. Swallowed. Whole.)... and oh, the depth of soft wonderful of cat fur, the startling glorious crescendo of a cat's voice when it indicated displeasure at me trying to discover the depths of that warmth with my grabby hands. It was all joy. All discovery. All enthusiasm. All open, all welcoming, to all experience. Even pain was an open experience, not damped down or covered over, fully and completely powerful in my body's automatic reaction - the unconscious grabbing of the wounded part was a curiosity to me, observed with astonishment - I didn't even choose to grab my head or my foot or my elbow, I just already had! Wow.

For "No" - I didn't much enjoy saying No, myself, at that age. It was an indication of loss, of displeasure, of discovery denied, of having been asked to leave the NOW of experience and wait, delay, deny the urgency and the need. It wasn't a statement of power or an indication that I knew that I was separate and myself, at least in part. It was grief, mourning, and essential pleasure delayed or denied.

No wonder I raged. No wonder my kids did, too.

So what to do with that, beyond the philosophy? What's the down-in-the-dirt rules? How do I know what to do, when?

Since every child is different, and every parent is different, and therefore every parent-child dyad is unique (not to mention ever-changing), knowing what to do, when, again has some 'filter' issues.

A filter I've discovered over time (with repeated failures to kick me in the right direction), is this: Parent for tomorrow, not today.

That is, you child is a moving target, and they WILL outgrow your methods if you apply your methods strictly to their age. Been there, done that too many times. I find myself yelling a lot all of a sudden, and it's because they outgrew my method. And neglected to tell me. So I just repeated the method that HAD worked. Only to have it not work. So I get frustrated, and like an idiot, try it again, only, um, louder. Or stronger, or more determinedly. Certain that somehow if I just say it loud and slow enough, maybe the person who doesn't speak this language (anymore) will understand. Yeah. Not. Back to the definition of insanity being doing the same thing over and over thinking it will work if I just do it one more time. You know the whole 'you have to say something a million times before it sinks in' concept - wrong. You don't have to say it a million times, unless you're approaching it in a way they can't hear. I'm discovering that yes, I have to say it again for new situations, but it is the first time for the new situation, if I'm doing it right, and it makes a difference within a few minutes, if I'm saying or doing it right. It may not solve the problem instantly, but I can feel the pressure dissipate, I can feel the problem open up, and everyone turns generally in the same direction toward a resolution, almost all the time.

But that's with using methods that will work forever. Using ones that work for toddlers only? preschoolers only? gradeschoolers only? BZZT. They work for a few seconds. And then I have to do them again. Louder, usually.

 

So parent in a way that will apply later. Smacking their hand might work now, but will it work when they're 15? No? Then why get in the habit? Why set myself up to have to learn a new method again in a few months, and then only after this one has failed on me miserably? This doesn't mean taking the car keys, either - that, too, will be outgrown. It means looking at the whole person, finding their needs, finding my needs, figuring out if there's an intersection, and working from there. And accepting that sometimes, there is NOT going to be one. Sometimes, what they need cannot be met, and what I need cannot be met. But not ignoring those points, recognizing and being reconciled with them. Saying, "In this house, we do not, because" or 'Baba's house, Baba's rules" or "I am not willing to do that" or "I'm not comfortable with this" is okay.

I'm finding the Non-violent communication stuff quite useful on this. For toddlers and preschoolers, I think to figure out how to parent any given child, there are some definitely good items to read:

1) Developmental norm information. The closer we are to understanding what they are capable of and what they are not, the better we parent. This has been shown many times in research - if we estimate their ability well, we parent well. If we mistake their ability, we freak out a lot. Expectations violated, frustration through the roof, not good for decision making by anyone, parents included. So, read up- What's Going on in There? : How the Brain and Mind Develop in the First Five Years of Life or Your One-Year-Old: The Fun-Loving, Fussy 12-To 24-Month-Old or the Brazelton books (like Touchpoints), or anything developmental that is aimed at 'what can you reasonably expect as function from this age?'

2) Techniques and methods. Books I like include Positive Discipline for Preschoolers - Raising Children Who Are Responsible, Respectful, and Resourceful (this one worked better for me than the Toddlers one, and had good info on power struggles - but I don't USE it, I just read it), Respectful Parents, Respectful Kids: 7 Keys to Turn Family Conflict into Cooperation (lots of info on toddler/preschooler respectful parenting), Parent Effectiveness Training: The Proven Program for Raising Responsible Children, and Raising Our Children, Raising Ourselves: Transforming Parent-child Relationships from Reaction And Struggle to Freedom, Power And Joy. They each have their issues and angles (as you can probably tell from their titles! HOLY MOLY, the lengthy titles...) - and honestly, I am uncomfortable reading just one book on a subject - I want to have a good three or more perspectives to see what is the central core, and what is excess, pick up the errors they each highlight (which will vary), and then be able to work with that core plus everyone's tips and tricks and secret methods.

This whole approach - parenting for tomorrow, not just today - reflects the fact that I'm more into long-term results than short-term, but I find that when I use methods that show long-term benefits, they usually have short-term benefits, too. Often not the ones I'm thinking they'll have, but they do. And often not exactly when I thought they would. But they do.

Case in point for the day - leaning as hard as I can on the non-violent communication (all the books in the methods above has some flavor of non-violent communication involved, though there's more consequence emphasis in the Positive Discipline series) - and with some serious swinging back and forth in my skills, as I'm learning, meant that I've had two days of mangle at bedtime. Okay, so new room and issues with excitement over new room and annoyance and frustration over new room and assigning ownership and range in new room... but despite all the reasons for the mangle, including mine, I'm trying. And trying again each time I blow it. A lot of effort on my part, and ... and ...

Mr G: (flopped down next to me) I got ready for bed quickly and finished it without complaining - you know why?
Me: (thinking, because we ASKED, and you AGREED TO???? You chose to be compliant? Then swallowing that as it isn't relevant or useful, since he's asking to tell me anyway) No, why?
Mr G: Because I saw you were upset, and I knew it would help if I just did my part.
Me: (um, yeah, actually that's what I'd like for motivation, not just 'check the mental list, am I being compliant?' - empathy, understanding, action! WOO!) Thanks. That does help. I really needed... um, wanted everyone to cooperate tonight, so we could have a peaceful bedtime.
Mr G: (smile, then reach out and rub my arm, then get up and give me a hug)

Yep, there were still some hiccups. Still, the amount of energy expended by me was 1/10th what it usually is. Just by parenting with the assumption that these people are not just kids (not even 'MY kids, fabulous kids'), but people. I get that, but applying it can be a struggle when they're so very much their age on any given day. But while I didn't work the angle well with Miss M, I hit the mark with Miss R - like her brother, she also ran off, got her toothbrush, and went potty without five trips to the bathroom afterwards, without fuss, without her snarky grin while refusing to move, her eyes glinting 'let's see you make me'... Nope, she joyfully chose to make the evening smooth and peaceful. And even the tangle we got in with Mr B wasn't awful, and I realized when I was likely to make it worse so excused myself from it (gave myself a time-in, to focus on something else and get past my frustration with him - ep handled that side, but I think I could have been ready again in another 10 minutes), and while Miss M was leaping and bouncing and gleefully insisting she wasn't tired, she didn't need to sleep, she also asked for what she wanted, expressed her underlying need clearly (as usual, though I have to be in the right place with myself to hear it, dangit), I met that need, and she settled down with a minimum of repeating 'I don't enjoy reading when people are bouncing about - please lie down and I'll keep reading' - and she was out like a light, and stayed out all night. WOO! I parented for tomorrow, and it worked, today.

Every moment of their life is entangled in this moment - past, present, future, all meet here. I am parenting right now who they will be when they grow up, and realigning the parenting they've received in every moment of the past. If I allow myself to accept that philosophical mind-bender, that every moment is this moment, all times are this time, the only now we have is now, and allow the deeper truth of that to expand (that all future nows are contained in this now), then I must parent them not as if what we have today is all we have to work with, but as if all times are this time, and everything we will EVER have is what I am working with, right now in this moment.

And hey, it works. Works today, works into tomorrow's today, carries forward.

Bend my brain all you want, if it works, I'm taking it.

***

(More on the general topic over the next few days - I know this is just one edge of the whole toddler picture...)

Draining the Quake Lake

I don't know how much attention other people put on the earthquake in Sichuan, China. I pretty much searched the news compulsively, as I'd spent three weeks there when I was 19. I knew that someone I remembered, someone I had developed a fondness for, was almost certain to be hurting. So many children died, so many families shattered, one whole village swallowed by mountains that moved closer together... The disruption of quake after quake, aftershocks measuring into the serious quake numbers, hundreds and hundreds of them...

One of the non-tragic stories was the forming (by earthquake) and draining (by strategic use of anti-aircraft weapons, I think) of a 'quake lake' - a lake formed by the blockage of a river because of rock and mudslides. The water flow out of the lake when they finally broke through the dam of rock and debris and mud was powerful, but a controlled release, and one that did not put hundreds of thousands of people downstream at risk. Hooray all around!

Last night, we had our own version of this.

I've been working at using the respectful communication, as I've noted. I'm focusing on the non-violent communication method, because it details exactly how to phrase what is a need, what is a choice, what is a feeling, what is a desire/want, etc. And it details how NOT to... rather mortifying to realize that I've been following the how NOT to, almost to the letter! And funny, when I read that saying, 'I feel that ...', is a cue that the following words will be thoughts or analysis and not feelings, I flashed back to probably hundreds of disagreements between me and epeepunk where I was sure I was communicating well and cleanly, and yet he felt blamed, guilted, or otherwise angry despite this, um, fact. I could hear me saying 'I feel that ...' over and over and over and over. Oops seems too small a word, here. (Fortunately he took my apology with only a little gleeful rejoicing that he was indeed right that I wasn't sticking to my side of the problem, even if he hadn't been able to identify why it seemed that way.)

Properly chastened, I started up again, working on doing it 'properly'  - which sounds awkward at times, but seems to work, so... effective, prudent, true. Going to use it, even if it seems odd for now.

And then last night, on the heels of this understanding, I was alerted to a problem. Mr B was screaming at the top of his register, the scream of hurt and fury and retaliation, the scream that is meant to cause pain.

I found Mr G lying on the floor, and Mr B screaming and holding the side of his head. I (um) demanded to know what happened, and (crud) ordered them to tell me (argh!) whose fault it was. Can I start any worse than that without hitting them? Oh, and don't forget the intense expression and loud voice - not quite yelling, but close enough.

And of course, having done so, I set off another round - Mr B said that Mr G had thrown him into the sofa, and he'd hit his ear, and it wasn't his FAULT. I snapped my attention to Mr G, who then went straight into wounded fury.

It turned out that Mr G had built a small lego creation, and Mr B had accidentally knocked it off the stool and shattered it. Mr G had glowered at Mr B, who had wailed, 'I didn't MEAN to,' and when this was not met by instantaneous forgiveness (continued glower), Mr B leapt at Mr G, attacking him in fury. Mr G then pushed him off, where he then fell and hit his ear.

Oy.

I apologized to Mr G, and followed him into his room (where he'd fled in despair and rage). And started over.

Listened. Asked for the emotion. Worked on identifying the need under the emotion. Coached him through it. And again. At first he didn't quite understand, but when he got that I needed to hear the real, deep, intense, NEED under the pain, and not just have him reiterate the pain alone...

Well, a surface-to-air missile was a close approximation to the impact.

His pain poured out in floods.

He poured out pain he's carried for years.

Pain of feeling supplanted by younger siblings, and needing to be valued.

Pain of feeling lonely and lacking friends, and needing to have community.

Pain of living far from the people he likes best, and needing to have choice and power in meeting his need to spend time with them.

Pain of being promised, and having the promise forgotten (that one TWO YEARS OLD, but still there, from a single event).

Need to be valued and treated as integral to the family at mealtimes, need to be valued by his cousin and not feel like a target for her own unhappiness about not having choice over where she spends her time in the summer (nothing drastic, just little niggling irritations constantly - he feels a lack of skill for handling this, too.).

Need to have choice over so many areas that really, he SHOULD have choice over, and often by the nature of life in a large family, he doesn't.

Need to be accompanied, to be in community, while working.

He feels alone and isolated in his own family.

It was pretty painful - for me. Hearing it and being open to the pain of all our errors, and the pain of all the circumstances beyond our control, of all the situations we chose and would not go back on but that come with uncomfortable edges or aspects... where we chose to live, how many kids we have, what we're doing for summer care, and so forth... hard work not snapping back into lecture, lecture, react, knee-jerk, hurt-back, and more lecture.

But, I did it.

I rode the wave. Kind of a crashing bumpy ride, like kayaking the surge out of the quake lake. Dangerous, in that tipping too far in any direction, losing the balance and flow of the outpouring, was likely to cause a lot of damage. Painful, like the amount of muscle strain working to stay upright while riding the flood would be. And, at the same time, exhilarating, powerful, awe-inspiring, humbling. Staying in balance through that flood left me feeling whole, competent, and true to myself, as well as aching with knowing how much my beloved son had been hurting without speaking.

It finally drained down to the steady pour of release, past the rage and sobbing, past the face flushed and body rigid, past the blame and anger and lashing out. Lake not empty, but now low enough to release over time (provided the spillway remains open), gently, steadily.

Then we could talk about my feelings and needs - with me asking if he could hear them, first. He agreed, and we discovered that his need for fun attention was intersecting badly with my need to maintain house, bodies, property. His resentment came out in the form of 'how come you care about perfect neat and tidy, and not US?' - um, perfect neat and tidy? Hello, that is so NOT what I care about! I care about usable space, some room to work, far from perfect! But to him, my need to put away clothes instead of sitting with him while he takes a bath, means 'put away' is more important than being with him. OUCH. YET, when I expressed my need to have a maintained space, property, and health, not perfect, and that I was working with many tasks that needed to be completed and limited time, he immediately understood that by helping more with the maintenance, he could free up more time and energy from me for fun stuff. He agreed that he would be willing to work out strategies for how he could help make that time for us. Openly, and looking more mature and thoughtful than I've ever seen. (Whoa.) I caught a glimpse of the young-adult in his face. Love those moments.

We also talked about strategies for solving the long laundry list of issues. He thought a family meeting might work (which always seemed like a really challenging concept to me - granted, two 3 1/2 year olds and anything related to serious discussions is challenging... we've tried them, but they haven't stuck. Maybe we didn't express well enough what they were for, how they'd help meet the kids' needs?).

Meanwhile, having left Mr B to his own devices, he spent the time I was talking with Mr G writing out, very carefully (two separate times), I'm sorry, I lied. About what? About it being your fault that you hurt me, and not my fault that I caused it.

Again, WHOA. He expressed it humbly, openly, and with sincerity. He then rebuilt Mr G's broken lego creation (in his own way). Which also brought up that we've been celebrating Mr B's talent with lego, but not Mr G's talent - smaller talent, but not insignificant, and really, we TRY (sigh) to celebrate their JOY with lego, their creations no matter what size or drama need to be valued. I don't want him to start declining to play lego because he can't compete... RIGHT smack back to the Siblings Without Rivalry book. Time for a re-read on that one, too.

Nobody had eaten, the girls were rambunctious (seeking attention for themselves), and it was getting late.

When I asked Mr G what he wanted for dinner, he didn't answer. (ARGH) I asked if he wanted pizza. He said yes. I made pizza. That wasn't what he wanted.

But instead of being grumpy at each other, I noted the facts of what happened. He realized he'd mis-heard me (thinking I'd asked him if he wanted to eat something with us), I'd therefore gotten the wrong message, and had acted on it. He winced ruefully, holding eye contact, and said, okay, he'd eat pizza then. Thanks.

Again, whoa. No grumping. Just acceptance. He wanted to have waffles along with pizza, too... I wasn't comfortable with this, and (woo, practice helps!) expressed it clearly as a concern (though still imperfectly overall - skipped the need to preserve our resources by not wasting food), and he shrugged, and said okay, he'd eat as much pizza as felt good, and then if he still wanted waffles, we'd go from there. He decided he didn't want waffles, half-way through the pizza. Again, no resistance, no internal pressure. The flood gates were already open.

I ended the day regretting deeply that I hadn't realized I wasn't using the method properly from the start. I was exhausted, though still feeling good, and despite the realization of soooo many mistakes on my part, not defeated. Still, exhausted is exhausted. I fear that I'm going to have to blast open a few more quake lakes before we're down to just the regular checking of the channels to make sure they're clear.

At the same time, I don't have any fear about the 'downstream' effects in the future - the flood of pain has been averted, it will not be able to build up to that extent again (I hope).

And many of my own needs (including to just have time to have fun) may find their way to being met. With willing assistance.

Cool.

Messing up and trying again

Long weekend. (No need for (much) sympathy here, or instruction, or guidance. Just offering up the example of 'what we say' (both the good and the bad), for examples.)

Much of the fallout from the fox pee has been handled or addressed - we're still working out the exact resolution(s), but it is proceeding. The whole chastened thing seems to have settled in for Mr G on being somewhat more aware of the fact that (GASP!) Mom has Needs of Her Own.

Like, Mom cares about her garden - not just 'oh, how nice, some flowers' cares, but really cares. I've caught him noticing that, now - mentioning to me things he sees or notices that affect the garden, and holding his eyes on me for the response. That's now on his radar.

We've been working a bit more on the respectful communication issue, as well - just in general. Because it works. And it works for each child. Well, for each.

And I suck at it some days. Or rather, I suck at remembering to do it.

Like, oh, bath time the other night. Two girls in the tub. I look up to find Mr G glowering over my head through the open door. Thunderclouds must be hiding their heads in shame, by comparison.

Mr G: M------!

Me: What's up? (Miss M meanwhile ignores him because it's WATER, and WATER, and um, WATER! Splash splash stomp pour WATER!)

Mr G: She. Took. My. Money. And she hid it. And I can't find it all! There were... there were.. (tearing up) there were FOUR dollars and she took them, and now I can only find ... I can only find... THREE. ( holds out the three dollars, fanned, complete with a dramatic pause - obviously this is of major importance?)

Me: (responding the hyperbole in the wrong way...) So, you're missing ... a dollar?

Mr G: YES! And it is MINE and she... she took it and she hid them everywhere and now I can't ... I found THREE, but I can't ... FIND. IT.

Me: (blandly) But it's just a dollar that's missing. (not getting that it was the violation of taking-and-hiding, not the amount that matters)

Mr G: She TOOK it and she HID it. (classic example of him trying to point me in the right direction, though I'm not getting it... yay retrospect, sigh)

Me: She's three. She does that. (and because there's nothing hurts so much that it can't be made worse by guilt...) And the real problem here is that you didn't put your money where it belongs, somewhere she can't reach ...

Mr G: (interrupting, face turning purple) I KNOW THAT. Daddy already SAID that. (breath) She TOOK it, and now there's a dollar missing, and I can't find it, and I've LOOKED. She ... she ... she HID it.

Me: (dimly noticing that I'm totally blowing a great opportunity here) So you know what to do with your money now. And it's just a dollar missing, we can fix that.

Mr G: (turns and stomps off, then calls from the other room) I want you to take her OUT of the bath, and hold her and make her LOOK at me, so I can tell her ... make her tell me where she put it!

Me: Um. (gears starting to turn, finally, but still only 10% in the right direction) Wait. You want her to get angry? ( aaaand crunch go the gears, grinding right back to lecture mode) Because that's what will happen if I take her out, she'll get angry, and then she'll ... you know, when people are angry, they have a hard time hearing what you're saying. She won't pay any attention to what you say if you make her angry first. (It's painful to write that part because it's so obviously related to how Mr G was acting and feeling, and yet I completely ignored that part regarding him! AHHHH!)

Mr G: I WANT her to be angry. I want her to feel angry.

Me: (Finally getting moving in the right direction) You want her to feel as angry as you feel.

Mr G: Yes! Yes! I want her to feel angry, and hurt, and ...

Me: You want her to really know how you feel.

Mr G: Yes. (more calmly, steps back into the bathroom) I want her to feel bad for hiding my money.

Me: Hmm. So you want a solution that makes her a bit unhappy or uncomfortable. You want her to know how it feels.

Mr G: Yes. Exactly. (totally calm... pause) Like what?

Me: Well, it's just a dollar. (this time said without any emotional loading - just stated as a fact) I could have her help me with chores, and then give the money to you instead of her.

Mr G: (slight vindictive bite to his tone) I want to sit there and watch her while she works. too.

Me: You really want to be able to see a bit of your pain reflected in her life.

Mr G: Yes. (Sigh, breathing normally, color normal now, turns and leaves)

Later, he comes back just to glower at Miss M again.

Me: What's up? Oh. Still feeling angry?

Mr G: Yes. (turns and heads off again, but face has relaxed)

The rest of the evening was pretty much a mangle. Mr G was clearly feeling wounded and sensitive and in need of some tenderness, and I was pretty much 'oh, you're here for your bath, okay, I'm out of the bathroom, you wash' and he wanted me to stay and hang out while I wanted to go put away clothes, and I snapped right back into lecture mode instead of acknowledging his needs and stating my own and problem solving...  and he looked crestfallen and not-at-all-mollified by the whole 'when they're 10 I won't sit with them, either' crap... because, really, is it about them, or about his need to reconnect after the fight? Topped off by me losing my temper at Mr G during his bath because I found someone had dumped his white uniform shirts on the floor AGAIN (fourth time) and he'd been walking on them without picking them up AGAIN, and I'd already TOLD him that this was a problem for me and I'd ASKED him to be careful and pay attention, and I'd REMINDED him that these shirts are to be passed down to his brother and I'd REITERATED that they needed to be in good condition to be reused and WHAT did I need to say for him to remember, and I don't UNDERSTAND why this doesn't get through, and I didn't want to see these on the floor AGAIN, and he was going to have to PICK UP EVERY ITEM ... lecture lecture berate shame guilt lecture lecture tell demand.

Damn.

I think I skipped over 'what is WRONG with you? are you BLIND?' and 'you're driving me INSANE, I'm going to have to move OUT' and 'What did I do to deserve THIS?' or 'What am I, your SERVANT?' Hey, can I count it a score in the plus column that I skipped those ones? (wince)

Yeah, let me see... script from my childhood, where my messes caused disturbances in my parents' marriage (step-dad), set off issues for step-dad a lot, which set off issues for mom, which came out badly (and at the age when mom was dealing with a lot of her own work, and had minimal energy for figuring out - plus little skill in the whole 'how to teach children to clean up' world at all - I understand where the script came from, and why, and have long since forgiven it... but it utterly sucks to realize I'm passing on that pain without even seeing it go by...). So, my script, word for word, or nearly (I was terrible about dumping my clothes on the floor until, oh, well into marriage. Still not great about it, but better... funny, this method didn't work for me, yet here I am expecting it to work for someone else?). Booger.

It was one of those days that I ended up going to bed thinking 'tomorrow is another day, tomorrow is another day, tomorrow is another day, in which to try again'.

And of course, the next day started with a fight between Miss M and Miss R. But I was still working hard on remembering the stop, observe (facts only, no assessment), reflect empathetically (their feelings out loud - my feelings to myself), and let them figure it out. And hey, in about 30 seconds from me starting to do it 'right' (flubbed the start, but got back on track sooner), they went from screaming and trying to push each other off the favored object to calmly discussing how to switch turns, who had which turn first at this point (and generously offering it to each other), and how long the turn(s) should be ('three' seems to be a favorite duration - three pushes of a button in this case, though it could be three anythings), and then generously making room for each other in the transition from who was up to who was down, followed by going off to play cooperatively together, followed by asking clearly for what they needed (time with me, reading a story), followed by me feeling able to calmly state my own needs regarding getting to work, but recognizing their needs remained, and suggesting a short-term option followed by a possible alternative, both of which were happily accepted... I left for work with them all smiles and cuddles sharing the remainder of a story with our nanny. The day was easy, calm, and cooperative, with creative problem-solving and good efforts all around (per our nanny).

It works, and it works, and it magnifies the good as it goes, and it is STILL hard to remember to do it. The urge to lecture, to berate, to remind, to guilt... so powerful. And so useless, too. The data available in the lecture is valuable, in some ways. If they ask. And even then, often they ask because they need to figure it out for themselves and need the opportunity to do so... and ... lecture still leaves them no room to find out for themselves. Sigh. Crud.

Safe.

Respectful.

Kind.

Effective.

Prudent.

True.

Bzzzt. I think I maybe passed on Safe. Woo.

Ah, well. Tomorrow is another day. And I'll try again.

Normal is varied

I was flipping through Ellyn Satter's "How to Get Your Kid to Eat - But Not Too Much" the other day, and ran across something really important she said about normal versus disordered eating.

Normal eating includes all varieties of eating, good, bad, and indifferent. It's doing things one way one day, and another way another day. It's eating the entire plate of cookies just because they taste so good - but not always doing that when one encounters cookies. It's sometimes fast, sometimes slow, sometimes too much, sometimes too little. Normal is varied.

And disordered is often an absolutely reliable and consistent approach for every situation, or for each type of situation. Always controlling the amount, always controlling the time, always too much, or always too little, or even always just the right amount. Never giving in to the urge, or always giving in to the urge. The hallmark of a problem, she said, is that only one method is okay and allowed. The sign of a problem is lack of variation. Sameness is a warning sign.

This has been bouncing around in my head. But not regarding food.

It's regarding the parental tool box.

Most people I know have encountered the idea that different children need to be parented differently - that what works for one isn't optimal for the next, ad infinitum.

And many people are probably cool with the idea that for one child, the parenting may need to differ over time - different developmental level, different needs, different methods. Makes sense.

But what I'm seeing with my kids is that they do best when I use different parenting methods on them AT ANY GIVEN TIME. The situation varies. The emotional burden varies. My condition (emotional, physical) varies. The dyad is dynamic, ever-changing, moment-to-moment.

Which would mean that different parenting methods should probably be applied as needed. Which totally flies in the face of the standard myth that the only successful approach will be CONSISTENT application (the more perfectly applied, the better). On the up side, it matches the neurobiology research that shows greatest sturdiness of emotional function when parented with ... um, normal mucking up. And also with two different degrees of 'in there supporting up close' - kids do better when they've got multiple parenting methods applied.

I'm finding that even when they don't change much, when I'm pretty stable and they're not in total flux, parenting the same way all the time seems to lead to more issues than mixing it up does.

Not that I'm advocating swinging wildly from corporal punishment to gentle discipline and back. But that within one range, many things to try, and do, over and over.

I'm seeing this with Miss M, our child-of-challenge du jour. I realized that when she was getting emotionally upset, I was doing and saying the same things over and over. And she was lining up with the things I was doing and saying, being shaped by them. And unfortunately, they weren't an absolutely perfect response - very good, empathetic, kind, in tune. And imperfect. Because I cannot see inside her mind, and she inside mine (close, but not quite!), I cannot spot what she isn't getting when I do that. And that leaves a hole, and the hole leaks negative behavior. I could try to be perfect, all the time. But that also leaves a hole, ends up with kids growing up thinking they're expected to be perfect, or not knowing how much work is involved in parenting (or life in general), and ending up discouraged or traumatized by the reality. It's useful for them to know how to do this well, but it's also useful for them to discover it themselves, and get some scraped knees along the way.

So, I have been mixing it up. Not willy-nilly, but responsively.

My methods of achieving calm so we could work out a problem had (in the case that got me thinking recently) set her up to think that her feelings were SO IMPORTANT that everyone else should stop and pay attention. (lessee, any tie in to the fits over sharing here? naaaah.) I was always attending to her feelings carefully. And forgetting that research shows that having only close attending to the feelings leads to increased fragility, not decreased fragility. They need both regard and a little distance and allowing them to handle it themselves so they can learn to trust that they are able So, a bit of a tweak over the last few days - as we've worked through the sharing issue, she's not been flipping out on that. Instead, she's moved to flipping out over choices, over having her way with other aspects of the day, over how her oatmeal is made.

So I've moved to asking her to go be in the peace corner until she's calm enough to solve the problem. I trust you to be able to calm down. Time to practice calming down. Gently plop her onto the cushions, and step away. Or rather, step back, as she tends to fling herself bodily out of the peace corner, wailing in outrage. Whereupon I gently pick her back up, reiterate that she needs to calm herself down and she can come out and help solve the problem when she's done and ready. And place her back on the cushions. And then step away again. We're down to only one recycle on that, in two days, I think. No sucking me back in, thanks. Just stepping away now. (Note that this has to read as 'I have things I need to attend to' rather than 'I'm going to IGNORE you now!' - being busy and relaxed, and not rigid and waiting makes a HUGE difference here - for my kids the message must clearly be that the handling yourself is just part of the flow of things, understood and assumed as just 'things that happen,' and not something I'm standing here demanding of you while I express my outrage with my body language. It is non-punitive stepping away, not ignoring. Also note that with my kids, different distances function differently for each - Mr B needs me to find something to do nearby while he works himself through, my presence tends to read to him as 'she feels safe around me when I'm feeling this way' and my distance reads to him as 'this is too scary for her, therefore it is too scary for me'. I'd tried the staying nearby with Miss M, and it just cycled her up worse.)

So there she is in the peace corner, and I'm attending to something else - still being aware, just attending elsewhere. She cries as loudly as she can for about 2 minutes. Then it gets very quiet (from experience I know she's playing cat and mouse, 'here, Mommy Mommy Mommy, come see what I'm doing, I'm all quiet now...'). I remain attentive to my other activity, though at this point I can cycle through the space so she can observe me being calm and not rigid and angry. And then she sniffles and moans for a bit. Then quiet again.

Hmm.

I can hear the wheels turning. I've seen her thought process go by before - it isn't manipulative, so much as responsive to her beliefs. She believes that she needs to be with someone to be safe with her feelings. And then she believes that her emptiness will draw me in to fill her up. And then she stops and feels her own feelings herself. From there, she expresses them to herself (not to me - the sniffles and moans are not pitched to carry). Once she allows herself to feel her feelings to herself, she gets a grip on herself, and calms down. At that point, she'll either rest and think, or poke her head (or voice) out of the peace corner ("Mommy, I'm ready"), or  pick up a book to read, or I'll wander by and ask if she's ready to come out. and she'll reach for me. At that point, it's cuddle and comfort, and commiseration, and then problem-solving time.

So that's a new way of handling the issue (or rather, and old way I'm remembering to use again). But at the same time, I haven't let go of sitting down next to her and commiserating utterly, receiving her pain as a gift, and offering back my understanding of it. I haven't tossed aside the idea of asking her to calm down right where she stands (or sits). I haven't let go of starting with the problem-solving right off. I haven't let go of giving her a skeptical look and declining to play along with the tantrum (even though this isn't usually useful for all situations, for some it appears to be perfect). I haven't let go of asking her to please take herself somewhere else until she's ready, or of asking her to keep her voice to a level that is non-punishing for everyone else. I haven't let go of asking if she's hungry, or tired. I haven't let go of trying to figure out if she had a bad dream, or is feeling off, or ate something she shouldn't. I haven't let go of being playful and discharging the energy with laughter. I haven't let go of stopping and telling her I love her in the middle of a fight. I haven't let go of acknowledging that I'm having trouble with a problem and need to excuse myself from the situation until I'm more able to cope.

They're all in the tool box.

So this time, I could handle one upset one way, and another another way. The 'I must be first, I was ready first' conflict with Miss R (who was first at the table, so thought SHE was ready first) was handled with humor and silliness and problem-solving (ending up with her opting to be the first to put brown sugar on her oatmeal while Miss R was first to put syrup on hers - I can't even remember what solution made them laugh so hard, but that was in there, too). And then the fit over whether I even made her  second bowl of oatmeal right (oy) was handled by gently depositing her in the peace corner until she was full of feeling cranky about it and then could release it herself. Second bowl of oatmeal was then properly assembled (with orange juice on top of cinnamon roll ... which just sounds gross, but the sticky kiss I got good-bye didn't taste bad at all), and she was happy.

OJ and cinnamon, though... okay, whatever. Hey, apparently the other day she put cinnamon sugar on her chicken at lunch. That's, er, Mexican, right? Or is it Moroccan?

Normal is varied. Different methods, all the time. Not being stuck in one thing. Not only using one tool. That's normal. Healthy normal. Seems strange to call myself normal, I've spent so long not even knowing what that was.

***

Granted, sometimes my brain hurts, too. Or maybe that's the sleep deprivation? (not even just the littles... Mr G has been reading The Hound of the Baskervilles, and climbed into our bed after getting to the story of the hound's first appearance, wrapped his arms around my arm, pillowed his head on my shoulder, and then was finally able to sleep... it was quite sweet.)